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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Whisenhunt made name for himself at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a story I have told before, and don’t mind telling and re-telling again, and it couldn’t be more timely than right now. It dates back to a day when football at Georgia Tech was in a sad funk. One coach followed another until Homer Rice, the athletics director, reached into the NFL and brought Bill Curry back to campus from Green Bay. And Curry sashayed to Augusta to look at a high school senior named Ken Whisenhunt.
Curry found he had little competition. Whisenhunt had wrecked a knee early in the season and other recruiters had lost interest. In fact, Curry didn’t even have to invest a scholarship in him. Whisenhunt was looking for an education, a degree in engineering, and walked on.
“When he came in for a visit in the spring I took him out to watch practice,” Curry recalls. “After it was over, I asked him what he thought.
He said, ‘I can help you,’ and not in any kind of cocky way.”
Whisenhunt got into two games as a freshman, both at quarterback, and it was on a Saturday in November that he delivered on his promise. It was the same day of that historic game between Georgia and Florida and all eyes were on Jacksonville, the day of the Buck Belue-to-Lindsay Scott pass. Notre Dame was playing Tech at Grant Field, a serious mismatch, and I had stayed home to cover it. Tech had won only one game. Notre Dame was No. 1 in the nation.
By the second quarter, Tech was out of experienced quarterbacks, and on came Whisenhunt. The freshman. The kid. He completed three passes for 29 yards, one for 23 yards that set up a field goal and a 3-0 lead that lasted until the last four minutes. In desperation, the Irish kicked a field goal that tied the score, and thus the game ended, 3-3, one of the astounding upsets in Tech history.
Whisenhunt was never a quarterback again. He was hastily given a scholarship, became a tight end, played well enough to be drafted by the Falcons (12th and last round) and finished his playing career in Washington, with 56 catches and five touchdowns.
He had, as it turned out, pretty well achieved his ambition, and then some. As a freshman he had been asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer: A doctor or a pro football player. I don’t know what happened to engineering, unless you might say that’s what he is involved in now in Arizona.
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